Friday, December 23, 2005
A Lesson On Discrimination
Head on down to
this website where they show the video of Jane Elliot's A Class Divided. No it's not some Hollywood feel good flick. But a teacher who divides her class one day by the colour of their eyes, and by virtue of their eye colour are ascribed positive or negative labels. And how negative labels get reinforced through selective interpretation of these actions. It also shows how when the children are discriminated against, a performance deterioration is shown in a task which the kids usually don't have problems with. The Eye of the Storm which is clip 4 & 5 shows how powerless and frustrated people feel when they are discriminated against.
I think all these relates to real life very well, as with most social psychology experiments, but it just reinforces and brings this topic from the back of mind to something that we have to actively advocate. Especially at this time and age, where racial tolerance is something akin to world peace, you'd think as society progresses these problems should be reduced, but they never go away, not unless we do something about it. The subtle racist jokes to the blatant ones. And no even though your malay friend may laugh at your mini-mat jokes or your Sikh friends over the Singh-let joke, it is still not right. And don't ever let that lull yourself into thinking that it's ok, because you wouldn't like it when they start calling you munjen.
Unknown at 7:27 pm